US, Japan trade talks could see scrapping of car and truck tariffs originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 16 Apr 2013 07:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Goes Both Ways: Free-trade pact sees South Korean brands losing share at home originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 29 Dec 2012 11:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

After a long drought, domestic automakers picking up share in California originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 21 Jun 2011 08:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Quebec reportedly bans importation of RHD cars for six months to evaluate safety concerns originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Obama administration slaps hefty import tariffs on Chinese-made tires originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 14 Sep 2009 13:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Bolivia bans most imports to... curb traffic? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 22 Dec 2008 17:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Chinese government bans importation of Hyundais from S. Korea originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

"Import intenders" is the term used for car buyers who don't even consider domestic vehicles when planning their next purchase. And according to J.D. Power, they make up 54-percent of car buyers. In spite of Detroit's efforts, and in spite of improving testing scores, the Big Three have been unable to sway those buyers to their brands.

When Ford's ad agency put on a promotion called Swap My Ride, ordinary folks who drove Ford vehicles for a week raved about them. Buick just joined Lexus at the top of the J.D. Power long-term reliability survey. Yet when market research firm CNW holds focus groups with cars that have all of their branding removed, if people think the car is American their opinion of it automatically drops -- even if they're talking about a Toyota Camry. Having driven the new Cadillac CTS, which is a very good car, the biggest hurdle the brand will face when trying to lure BMW buyers is not the quality of the CTS -- it's the word "Cadillac."

There are a host of potential reasons for the reflex judgment of American cars = lesser quality. Detroit is building better cars than the ones that created the perception in the first place, but Ford, GM, and Chrysler aren't having much luck changing it. They are sure they can get more people to change their minds if they can just get them in the cars -- but they have to get them to even consider getting in the car. A solution is not just around the corner, but the first step will be to keep building good cars .

[Source: Wall Street Journal via Edmunds]

Detroit automakers still grapple with perception gap originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 18 Sep 2007 08:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Brits go un-Challenged: No Dodge Challenger for the UK! originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 15 Sep 2007 15:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Imports taking up the slack in fleet sales originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

How's this for a wake-up call on the state of the dollar: "If the dollar keeps slumping against the euro, the United States could become the next Mexico -- a low-cost manufacturing haven for European automakers and suppliers." With the dollar at $1.38 to the euro as of now, and expecting to drop further, European makes either need to raise prices, move production to "cheaper" countries like the US, become more efficient, or be happy with less profits. Fewer euros in the till isn't really an option, and price wars are already difficult enough to navigate. That leaves relocation or finding cost efficiencies in other markets.

The article in Automotive News goes on to detail how European manufacturers like BMW and Mercedes are actively moving production to their Spartanburg, South Carolina and Tuscaloosa, Alabama factories, respectively. VW is considering its options for an American plant, but will stick with Mexican operations for now. Audi's approach, since it only sells 10-percent of it's European product in the US, has been to find cost efficiencies in markets like China. Other companies looking for such natural hedges include Magna, which recently lost a huge amount of production at its Austrian plant. The Canadian supplier and manufacturer is looking at building a factory in America to ease the pain.

The market is being watched closely, and there are too many factors in play to know who will do what yet, but some analysts think the dollar might drop to $1.50 against the euro. If so, said John Lawson, chief auto analyst for Citigroup in London, "Either the dollar has to change, or the business model has to change."

[Source: Automotive News, sub req'd]

Euro vs. Dollar: More factories may be U.S.-bound originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 23 Jul 2007 08:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Saturn's new small car, a version of the well-regarded Opel Astra, should be hitting the shores of North American sometime a bit beyond the middle of 2007. This will replace the not-so-well-regarded Ion, which is now scheduled to be produced through March of 2007 - three months longer than originally announced.

The name for Saturn's new compact has not yet been decided, but it may carry over the Ion name, or it may simply use the Astra nameplate. Either way, customers can expect to get the full-on European experience, as the vehicle is expected to arrive from Europe largely unmolested by the same sort of American twiddling that has doomed similar efforts in the past.

In 2008, production is expected to move to a stateside facility - most likely GM's Lordstown plant, where the Cobalt and G5 are produced. This may provide an opportunity for some of the Astra's DNA to improve the existing Delta platform compacts, and we'd be quite pleased if a few of those supercharged Ecotecs were to find their way under the Astra's hood as part of Saturn's Red Line high-performance lineup.

[Source: Detroit Free Press; Nashville Business Journal]

Saturn's version of Opel Astra to hit next year; Ion gets stay of execution originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 14 Aug 2006 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

If imports are the new black, Chrysler has quite an ingenious idea: the company will tap DaimlerChrysler CEO Dieter Zetsche in its upcoming advertising campaign to promote the company's German blood and distance itself from the Big 2 and their huge problems. 

Chrysler says the ads will be product-focused, emphasizing the company's German ownership and what that says about the quality, design and overall coolness resulting from the synergies between the Daimler and Chrysler sides of the biz.

Dealers say the ads will be tagged with Chrysler's next big incentive push -- employee pricing.

[Source: The Car Connection]

Chrysler to play the German card in its advertising originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 29 Jun 2006 14:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

George Soros is said to be looking at investing $200M into Chinese automaker Chery to help its efforts in exporting low-cost vehicles to the United States. How this dovetails into Malcolm Bricklin's efforts to do the same with his Visionary Vehicles company is not yet clear; Bricklin is said to have confirmed the amount of the pending investment, but won't state the source of the money. Soros' fortune, earned mostly by currency speculation, is estimated at $7B, but we're not aware of any prior investment in automotive ventures.

Bricklin earlier this month stated that the stateside arrival of Chery vehicles will be postponed and ratcheted down his sales projections. Last month, executives from Chery are said to have met with representatives from Chrysler concerning the production of an inexpensive small car for the US market. It would appear that this saga has a few more twists and turns left in it before the first Chinese import lands in America.

[Source: Automotive News/Autoweek]

George Soros said to be pouring $200M into Chery export venture originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 17 Jun 2006 22:36:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Officials from the US and European Union have been prompted to file a complaint against China with the World Trade Organization (WTO), alleging that the up-and-coming Asian country has been manipulating taxes and tariffs on imported auto parts in an attempt to provide protection for domestic Chinese auto manufacturers.

China was to ramp down its protectionist efforts on auto parts as a condition of joining the WTO, and for the most part, tariffs and taxes on vehicles and auto parts have steadily dropped over the last four years. Tariffs on imported vehicles remain higher than those on components, however, which leads companies such as Cadillac to import "knock-down" kits of components that are then assembled into complete vehicles on the mainland. China claims that such actions are merely efforts to get around the higher tariffs on complete vehicles (well, duh), and is now looking to tax such component kits at the same rate as completed vehicles.

How this whole story will play out - and what effect it will have on foreign companies who do business in China - is yet unknown, but it seems clear that we'll have several years before anything resembling "free" or "fair" trade takes place between China and the West.

[Source: Detroit News]

Is China playing around with trade rules to maintain an advantage? originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 01 Jun 2006 13:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Of the vehicles released in 2005, the Chevrolet Cobalt generated the most "buzz" among Generation Y buyers, with the Hummer H3 attracting the most attention from grunge-era Gen Xers. Baby-boomers flocked to Dodge's retro-esque Charger, and the grey-haired set went bonkers for the Ford Five Hundred. The Charger was the only vehicle to get a top-5 mention by both Gen Y and pre-boomers, which makes us wonder if the Buick Lucerne will be able achieve the same generation crossover feat in next year's survey.

The survey doesn't appear biased towards domestics, so the near-shutout of foreign nameplates that appear on the survey (only the Lexus RX400h and Mercedes CLS managed to move the buzz-meter) has got to be encouraging for US manufacturers - if indeed it's not simply a single year aberration or a result of some hidden statistical slant.  

A large "WTF?" goes to buyers in the Hybrid/Alternative Fuel category, who apparently got all abuzz over the Dodge Charger. Oh, yeah, we forgot - there is indeed the highly popular Charger Hybrid. And don't ask us why the Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 appears in this survey, as it's a MY2007 introduction that was not available during the period of the survey.

A tip o' the hat goes to GM's FYI Blog.

[Source: Harris Interactive; the full press release is posted after the jump]

Continue reading Harris poll ranks the top "buzz-worthy" vehicles from 2005

Harris poll ranks the top "buzz-worthy" vehicles from 2005 originally appeared on Autoblog on Wed, 31 May 2006 14:04:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

The Level Field Institute, a group comprised of retired domestic auto workers, is telling consumers "What you drive, drives America" in an attempt to convince car buyers to purchase vehicles from the-group-of-nominally-domestic-automakers-previously-referred-to-as-the-Big-3. The ad campaign uses a variety of statistics to drive home its point, including the fact that direct employment by the US automakers is roughly 3.5 times that of the "transplants" (foreign automakers that produce vehicles in the US). Jason Vines, Chrysler's VP of Communications and always someone that's good for a quote, states "Baseball, hot dogs and Toyota? Sorry, it doesn't ring a bell."

While we fully support the concept of buying domestically-produced consumer products, we also feel that this campaign has an aura of desperation about it - as is often the case when an advertising campaign deviates from focus on the product itself. There is also the simple difficulty in determining the origin of a vehicle; as we posted earlier this week, the domestic content "gap" is closing between "domestic" and "foreign" vehicles, and the information displayed to consumers on the origin of a vehicle's content is often difficult to understand (or perhaps even misleading).

[Source: Detroit News]

New ad campaign for the Big 3 plays the "Buy American" card originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 12 May 2006 13:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

AutoWeek attended the SEMA International Auto Salon, a car show for sport compacts and the segment of the aftermarket industry serving sport compacts, and AW writers were sad to see the sorry state the Salon has come to -- moving from the Los Angeles Convention Center to Atlantic City, and finally, to the Fort Washington Expo Center, where the show was small, the roof leaked, and the fit and finish was less than high-end. They came away wondering, is the sport compact market on its way out?

Maybe, but probably not. The moral of the story -- consumer tastes are changing away from Honda Civics and their ilk in favor of a variety of different cars. Sport compact or not, in these hard economic times only the fittest will survive. That said, we fully expect the nascent European compact class (Volkswagen GTI, Audi A3, MINI Cooper, Volvo S30, etc.) to strike a major chord with the tuner culture, perhaps eating into the largely Japanese-badged front-wheel-drive import scene.

Too Fast, Too Furious... Too 2004? originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 28 Apr 2006 19:32:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.